Singapore to increase night running

Fears about a lack of running in the dark at Formula One's first night race in Singapore have been alleviated with a major timetable overhaul set to be rubber-stamped imminently, autosport.com can reveal

The original timetable for the street race had the event straddled over both day and night time - with each day's first practice session taking place during daylight hours and the later activity taking place after dusk.

But although the daytime sessions offered teams and drivers a chance to get acclimatized to the new track, there were also concerns about a lack of night running.

Under the original timetable, there would only have been one and a half hours of running in the dark before the night time qualifying session on Saturday.

Those fears prompted discussions between the teams and the FIA, with Scuderia Toro Rosso team manager Massimo Rivola leading a campaign for change after witnessing the MotoGP night race at Qatar earlier this year.

He told autosport.com after that experience: "Personally I am not relaxed, let me put it like this. Honestly, I would like to test but it is not possible and too expensive to realise. I am sure it will be fine in the end, but there are still some points to discuss.

"The most important is that our schedule should be all over the night, rather than split between day and the night. The sunset in Singapore is at 7pm and at the moment the plan is to have first practice finish at 6pm and second practice to start at 8pm."

Those worries have resulted in an overhaul of the weekend's schedule being put forward.

F1 teams were informed about the later version of the timetable in Turkey last weekend and, although there is a chance the timing could be changed again, senior sources claim that this is the version that will be used.

The new timetable is:

Practice 1   Friday    19:00-20:30
Practice 2   Friday:   21:30-23:00
Practice 3   Saturday  19:00-20:00
Qualifying   Saturday: 22:00-23:00
Race         Sunday:   20:00

Despite the change to the timetable easing concerns about the amount of night time running, it does provide fresh challenges for the teams - especially with just a one-hour break between the end of first practice on Friday and the start of the second session. The current gap is two and a half hours.

Autosport.com also understands that the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) is pushing for some kind of acclimatisation session on the track on the Thursday before the race - although whether this is in F1 cars or other machinery is not yet known.